266 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



" From Olney to Buckingham the route was per- 

 formed in chaise. The stone dug here in clay- 

 attracted much attention, and Mr. Smith doubted 

 whether to rank it as forest marble or cornbrash. 

 We now crossed the oolitic country to Aynhoe, 

 celebrated for its fossils, on foot ; next day con- 

 tinued the walk to Deddington, Chapelhouse, and 

 Churchill, and after a few days walked to Burford, 

 and then travelled in the ordinary way to Swindon, 

 Oxford, and London. In passing through Oxford, 

 Mr. Smith, for the first time in his life, had the 

 pleasure of seeing Professor Buckland, at the house 

 of Mr. Bliss, the bookseller, with whom he walked 

 over Shotover Hill, on his way toward London." 



This little tour is thus briefly narrated, becau5^ 

 it appears in all respects a fair example of the 

 usual way in which Mr. Smith explored the 

 country, walking when the object he had in view 

 required this mode of examination, travelling as 

 fast as possible in all other cases, but always 

 recording in note-books or on maps, the obser- 

 vations he made. 



Up in the north of England on the east coast 

 Smith loved to wander beneath the cliffs, noting 

 the minutest variations in the stratification, detect- 

 ing the slightest marks of dislocation, watching the 

 peculiarities of the sea's action on materials of 

 unlike qualities, and inferring the causes which 

 had anciently modified the outline of the land, 

 and covered the low cliffs of the oolitic series with 

 fragments of the lias from Whitby, of the coal and 



